Temperature-Sensitive Labels

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Ian Fitzsimmons

Ian Fitzsimmons
I took delivery this week of a couple of bottles of wine produced by Ponsot. The labels extended an extra half-inch or so the right (facing the bottle), where a small white circle is featured, surrounded by text in French and English saying that, if the circle were dark gray, the wine had been exposed to an excessively high temperature.

I checked on the Ponsot website for more details, but didn't find any (by the way, it's a well-conceived site and worth a tour). Who among you wise cognoscenti know more about this technical innovation? It strikes me as a very appealing feature, and I wonder what kind of additional cost per bottle it entails.

I have to think that most shippers and distributors (Joe & Co. excepted) would abominate labels like this and put pressure on producers not to use them.

Very tenuously related, I wonder if there are any flexible thermometers on the market that you can lay on the bottle to take it's temperature, rather than the ambient air temperature. I've seen something like this that you can lay on kids' foreheads, but don't recall whether they are graded finely enough to use for wines.
 
You can get liquid crystal readouts in every temperature range, including one suitable for the exteriors of thick wine bottles.
 
Almost certainly, the label employs a thermochromic ink. Such inks have been used on the labels of vaccines sent to remote parts of the world to assure that they haven't been compromised by high temperature. I've given some thought to this scheme, as it certainly appeals to the consumer, but I came up with a few hitches:

1. Nothing prevents an unscrupulous distributor/retailer from removing that part of the label or bleaching or painting that circle to make it appear white.

2. Where do we set the cutoff? Where does damage start? Should it change if it's exposed to 80 F temperatures for 5 minutes? 10 minutes? Should we err on the side of false positives or false negatives?

Mark Lipton
 
Coates says the spot on the Ponsot labels changes color at temperatures above 27 degrees centigrade. By the way, and unrelated to this discussion, he goes on to say "[Ponsot] has also developed a very sophisticated plastic cork, sourced in Italy, which he will use for all his 2007s."

I'll have to look around for the flex thermometers.

Mark, it would be easy to amend the text to note on the label the temperature at which the color changes; then buyers could make their own choices. Personally, I think it would be hard to tamper with the label in a way that wouldn't be obvious. Also, over time, informed buyers would come to know which producers would normally use these labels, and would balk at buying bottles without them.

It seems that using these labels would stitch quality control into each stage of the supply web: importers would check before taking wines from winery storage, distributors would check before taking them from importers, retailers from distributors, and buyers from retailers. It would put a lot of pressure on each service provider to manage their storage and conveyance very, very carefully, which is why I imagine many of them would resist widespread use of these labels.
 
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